Ruth First

“In South Africa, it is the ordinary people who are heroic.”

“Exile is a state of mind as much as a physical condition.”

“A prison cell is a kind of coffin for the living.”

“To be a revolutionary, you must be a romantic. You must believe in the goodness of people.”

“The story of women's struggle for emancipation is part of the general struggle for liberation.”

“Secrecy is the very soul of conspiracy.”

“There is no short cut to the conquest of power.”

“The purpose of a university is not simply to teach, but to question, to challenge, to think critically.”

“It is not the facts of biography that are important, but the attitudes, the solutions, the values that are expressed in a life.”

“The struggle for freedom is not a matter for the courtroom; it is a matter of the streets, of the factories, of the mines.”

“Censorship is a horrible and ugly thing, and it is a sign of a sick society.”

“A political prisoner is a somebody who is fighting for his rights, for his freedom, for the freedom of his people.”

“The real struggle is not against the flesh-and-blood rulers, but against the system that creates them.”